The Marriage Risk Read online

  The maintenance road ended, and Charles slowed as they crossed the rugged tundra. The ride was far less smooth now. The track, what there was of it, was barely recognizable, even to him. But then, he only visited the site two or three times a year.

  Soon they could hear the sound of rushing water. Lanni glanced at Charles questioningly.

  “That’s the Koyukuk River,” he explained.

  “Koyukuk,” Lanni repeated. “It sounds like you’re trying to clear your throat.”

  Charles laughed. “It’s an Athabascan word. Although you’ve probably never heard of it, the Koyukuk is the third longest river in Alaska. It stretches over 550 miles.”

  “Then the longest must be the Yukon?”

  “Right, but it covers three times the territory.”

  “That is impressive.”

  Charles threw her a look. He had the feeling she already knew this. “An Indian friend of mine lives close by. I hope you don’t mind if we drop in,” he said. “Fred’s a trapper, and I haven’t seen him in some time.”

  “I’d like that,” Lanni assured him.

  Charles smiled at her. Being with Lanni felt completely natural. When he’d first spoken to her that morning, his mouth had been so dry he could barely talk. Not now.

  Soon they approached Fred Susitna’s cabin, a weathered log structure nestled among scrub trees. A tin-covered porch extended halfway across the front, and a row of lanterns hung from hooks along the roof edge.

  Charles had no sooner turned off the engine than Fred appeared. His tanned, leathery face broke into a wide grin of welcome. Charles had been making impromptu visits to Fred’s cabin for years, and his friend never seemed to age. Fred could be forty or sixty, Charles didn’t know.

  “Welcome!” Fred hugged him as though it had been ten years since his last visit, instead of ten months. He slapped Charles on the back, then turned to meet Lanni.

  “Fred Susitna, this is Lanni Caldwell.”

  The trapper greeted her as he had Charles, with a hug of welcome. He ushered them into his home and went about heating oil to fry bread. In the Alaskan interior it was a custom to feed visitors.

  Within minutes they were served hot coffee and deep-fried bread coated with sugar. Charles smiled as Lanni finished the warm bread and licked the sugar from her fingertips.

  His friend murmured something in Athabascan. Although Charles didn’t understand the words Fred spoke, their meaning was clear.

  Charles could feel his face grow hot.

  He managed to make small talk for a while, asking about the line Fred trapped each winter. Lanni was full of questions when Fred proudly brought out and showed her the furs.

  It didn’t take Charles long to realize it had been a mistake to bring Lanni. Not because of her questions, but because Fred saw through him far too easily. As soon as he could do so without rudeness, Charles made an excuse to leave.

  “Good to see you again,” he said, edging his way to the door.

  “It is always a pleasure,” Fred said, walking out to the truck with him. “Come again soon and bring your woman.”

  He waited for Lanni to deny that she belonged to him or any other man. “Lanni isn’t my woman,” Charles corrected when she didn’t say anything.

  “No?” Fred Susitna asked, dark eyes twinkling. “I’ve never seen you run from the truth before, my friend.”

  If Lanni heard his remark, she didn’t comment, and Charles was grateful.

  The old mining site was less than five miles down the river. Charles parked the truck and helped Lanni out. Gazing around her, she walked over to the shore of the Koyukuk River. The water rushed past like a roaring freight train, drowning out every other sound.

  When Charles came to stand by her side, she turned and smiled up at him, a smile of excitement and pure rapture at the river’s fierce power. He swore he didn’t mean to kiss her. It just happened. One minute he was thinking how lovely she looked, how…kissable her mouth seemed, and the next she was in his arms.

  What started out as something unexpected, a moment’s gratification, quickly became much more. They kissed again and again, tenderly, then heatedly; gently, then with a restless hunger that left him breathless and confused.

  He needed to read what was in her eyes. He had to know what she was thinking, but realized he was afraid to ask. He eased his mouth from hers and searched her beautiful deep blue eyes. What he found there gave him pause.

  “Lanni,” he whispered, shocked by the openheartedness he saw, the acceptance.

  “Have we both gone crazy?” she asked him, whispering despite their solitude.

  “We must have.”

  They kissed again, a lazy, sensuous kiss, and when they broke apart, Charles was trembling. Trembling. Charles O’Halloran, ever calm and unemotional. Ever sensible and prudent. The man who’d been so sure where he stood on the subject of love.

  Only the day before, his brother had suggested he was tempting the fates. And now the fates had sent Lanni into his life to teach him a well-deserved lesson.

  “I…I need to sit down,” Lanni said.

  Charles could barely hear her above the noise of the rushing water. Truth be known, his own legs weren’t too steady, either. He slid an arm around Lanni, and together they leaned against a boulder; he caught his breath and let his heartbeat slow down.

  Charles considered apologizing—except that he wasn’t sorry. Instead, he tightened his arm, and she snuggled against him. He looked into those blue, blue eyes so filled with promise.

  “Charles, there’s something—”

  Unable to resist her a moment longer, he brought his lips down to brush hers.

  She moaned softly, the sound mingled with a tantalizing sigh of pleasure. “I should tell you—”

  “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Only this does.” He kissed her again, deciding that if this was craziness, it was the most wonderful feeling he’d ever experienced.

  “We came for gold,” she reminded him when she could speak again.

  “I’ve already found it,” Charles said, and kissed her once more.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lanni’s hand shook as she dialed her family home. Her father answered on the second ring.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said cheerfully.

  “Lanni, it’s good to hear from you. How’s everything in Hard Luck?”

  “Just great.”

  “Your mother wishes she could’ve come up with you. But we’ve already been over that—she’s needed here, and it made sense for you to be the one clearing out your grandmother’s house.”

  “Speaking of Mom, is she there? I need to talk to her.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, she’s at the nursing home with your grandmother.”

  “Oh.” It was difficult to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  Lanni bit her lip. “It has to do with the O’Hallorans.” Before she could say anything else, her father interrupted.

  “Are they bothering you? You might remind those troublemakers that we’re the ones doing them the favor. The least they could do is be cooperative.”

  “Daddy, they are! They’ve been fantastic. Sawyer and his fiancée had me over for dinner last night, and Charles—he’s the oldest brother—took me out to his grandfather’s gold stake this afternoon.” She didn’t say that they’d never gotten around to panning for gold; the afternoon had been spent touring the campsite and sipping wine over a camp stove and talking for hours on end. She’d told him about her studies at the University of Washington and her dreams of being a writer. Although she’d known it was deceptive, she didn’t mention her grandmother. She talked about her brother, though, and confessed how worried she was about him.

  Her father hesitated. “Well, I’m glad to hear they’ve made you feel welcome.”

  “I need to know what that old feud is all about, Dad. All I can remember is the little bit Mom told me.”

  “It’s not impo
rtant anymore, sweetheart,” her father insisted. “It all happened a long time ago and it’s best forgotten.”

  “But I’m dealing with the O’Hallorans now! I need to know what happened.”

  Her father was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “I think this is something you should discuss with your mother. If you want, I’ll have her phone you later.”

  “Please.”

  They chatted a while longer, then said their goodbyes. Disappointed that she was still in the dark, Lanni made herself a sandwich and wandered into her grandmother’s bedroom.

  The bulky headboard and matching dresser dated from the forties. The meticulously kept room told Lanni little about Catherine’s life.

  She started with the closet and emptied the contents onto the bed. A row of shoe boxes lined the top shelf. As she brought them down, Lanni saw that not all the boxes contained shoes. A peek inside one revealed several orderly stacks of black-and-white photographs.

  Lanni carried the box into the kitchen and sat down at the table. The first pile of photos was of her mother as a child. Lanni smiled as she saw her mother’s toddler face glaring into the camera from the top of a snowbank outside the house. Grammy and the grandfather who’d died before Lanni was born looked on.

  From what Lanni knew of her family history, her grandparents had divorced shortly after those photos were taken. Their daughter, Kate, Lanni’s mother, had been much closer to her father, Willie, than to Catherine. Willie Fletcher had moved to Anchorage, and Kate had lived there with him, occasionally visiting her mother for a few weeks at a time. Catherine Harmon Fletcher had steadfastly refused to leave Hard Luck, even though it meant giving up custody of her only child.

  Most of the photographs were of people Lanni didn’t recognize. She found a few of her grandmother’s wedding to William Fletcher. Catherine wore a lovely pastel-colored suit and held a small bouquet of white rosebuds.

  Lanni spread the photos across the table and carefully examined each picture, searching for an answer. None revealed itself. When she’d finished, she placed the snapshots back inside the shoe box and returned it to the bedroom.

  It was when she emptied the drawers that Lanni found the faded manila envelope. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she unfastened the metal tab and pulled out an eight-by-ten professionally taken photograph of her grandmother. Catherine couldn’t have been more than twenty. Her eyes were bright with happiness, and a smile softened her face. Scrawled across the top of the picture were the words “Sent to My Darling David, May 1944.” At the bottom was “From His Loving Bride-to-Be, Catherine.”

  David.

  Lanni couldn’t remember anyone ever mentioning a David. The second photo showed her grandmother in a long, flowing white wedding dress with a satin train that circled her feet. She turned over the picture to find the address of a Fairbanks photographer stamped on the back.

  Her grandmother had married twice? Lanni had already examined the pictures of her grandparents’ wedding, and Catherine had worn a pastel suit. There’d been no white wedding dress and traditional veil.

  The phone rang just then, and Lanni leapt up to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Sweetheart, your father said you called. Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine.” Only it wasn’t, not really. Her heart pounded as if she’d stumbled upon something she was never meant to discover. “I called because I wanted to find out what I could about the feud with the O’Hallorans.”

  “That’s what your father said. I don’t think there’d be any harm in telling you.” Her mother hesitated, perhaps unsure where she should start. “More than fifty years ago, your grandmother was engaged to David O’Halloran.”

  “They were engaged,” Lanni whispered, looking down at the photo in her hands.

  “Unfortunately World War II got in the way of their wedding. My mother wanted to marry David before he was shipped to England, but with such an uncertain future, David preferred that they wait.

  “Mom lived for David’s letters. She wrote him each and every day. According to what she told me, they were very much in love. She even had her wedding dress made and her photograph taken, but I don’t think she ever sent it to him.”

  That explained the picture.

  “Then Charles—David’s elder brother—was killed in France. The two were very close, and for three months afterward, Catherine didn’t receive a single letter from David. She was frantic until she finally got word that David was coming home. But he didn’t arrive alone. He came with an English bride—Ellen.”

  “Oh, no.” Lanni closed her eyes, feeling her grandmother’s pain and rejection as if it were her own.

  “It seems that when David learned of his brother’s death, he was inconsolable. He tried to explain his feelings to my mother, but Catherine wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to hear that this beautiful young Englishwoman had helped him through his grief.

  “Apparently Ellen’s family had died in the war, and she and David were both lost, lonely people. I suppose it’s understandable that they’d fall in love.”

  “Poor Grammy,” Lanni murmured.

  “You see, Lanni, your grandmother never loved another man. I’m not really sure why she married my father. She never loved him, never wanted him. It was always David O’Halloran. She pined for him all her life. When he died, it was as though she lost her reason for living.”

  “Oh, Mom, what a sad story.” It clarified so many things. No wonder her mother and grandmother had never been close. Kate was the product of a marriage to a man her grandmother had never loved. And her mother had always known that.

  “It would’ve been much better if it was David who’d died in the war, instead of Charles,” Kate said in a low, harsh voice.

  Lanni tensed at the words. If David had died, there would’ve been no sons. No Sawyer. No Christian. No Charles.

  “Naturally I don’t know everything that happened after David brought Ellen home with him,” Kate went on, sounding almost normal again. “Knowing my mother, she didn’t do anything to make Ellen feel welcome. I’m sure the town’s sympathy went to Catherine, and I’m also sure she took full advantage of that. Knowing her, I’m fairly certain she made Ellen’s life as miserable as her own.”

  “Why would she stay in Hard Luck?” Lanni asked. It must have been torture for Catherine to watch the man she loved with another woman.

  “I can’t answer that. I believe Mother lived with the hope that David and Ellen would eventually divorce. I understand there were problems with the marriage from the first. And my mother was there on the sidelines—patiently waiting for David to leave Ellen. Only he never did.”

  “She never stopped loving him,” Lanni said.

  “Or hating him,” Kate added. “I believe there was a fine line between love and hate as far as my mother and David O’Halloran were concerned.”

  “I’ve met two of his sons. The oldest is Charles—they probably named him after the Charles who died in the war. Sawyer’s the middle one. His wedding is at the end of next week—he’s marrying one of the women who answered the newspaper ad. They seem very much in love.”

  “It certainly didn’t take him long.”

  “Charles claims Sawyer barely gave Abbey time to unpack her suitcase. I didn’t know two people could fall in love so fast. It was as if they knew from the moment they met that they were meant to be together.”

  “It goes like that sometimes.”

  “Abbey’s got two children from a previous marriage. Seeing the four of them together, you’d never know Sawyer wasn’t their father. Whatever they have is very special.”

  “I’m happy for him,” her mother said, but she seemed distracted. “You won’t stay there longer than necessary, will you?”

  “No,” Lanni replied, but she knew what her mother was thinking. She was worried that Lanni, too, would be swept off her feet. She opened her mouth to reassure Kate, then abruptly closed it.

  She wasn’t too sure it hadn’t hap
pened already.

  * * *

  At the Midnight Sons office late that afternoon, Charles propped his feet on the corner of Sawyer’s desk and twisted the cap off a cold bottle of beer. Across from him, Sawyer leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “In a few days, I’ll be a married man,” his brother said meaningfully.

  “Are you having second thoughts?” Charles asked, watching Sawyer closely. If Sawyer had had a change of heart, it wasn’t too late, but Charles sincerely hoped that wasn’t the case.

  “Second thoughts? Are you nuts?” Sawyer burst out. “I want to marry Abbey more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. It’s just that all at once I realize what a huge responsibility it is to become a husband and a father.”

  Charles lifted the beer bottle in a silent toast. “Better you than me, little brother.”

  “I didn’t know it was possible to love anyone this much,” he said, apparently speaking to himself. “It’s almost…frightening.”

  Charles said nothing. Never having been in love, he couldn’t entirely relate to his brother’s feelings. Or could he? He thought of Lanni with her wistful, soul-deep eyes and the way her cheeks flushed when he kissed her. Lanni. She’d felt so soft in his arms. And he remembered how easy and companionable their conversation had been. Charles had always considered himself a somewhat solitary man, self-sufficient and happy with his own company. Now, after meeting Lanni, his life just seemed…lonely. He couldn’t help wondering if this was what his brother had experienced when he met Abbey.

  Charles didn’t know and he wasn’t about to ask. Not after the way he’d chided Sawyer for rushing into marriage.

  The office door flew open, and John Henderson stepped inside. “Ralph needs to talk to you,” he told Sawyer, nodding politely in Charles’s direction.

  “Problems?”

  “Nothing you can’t fix,” John assured him.

  “You go on,” Charles said. “I’ll finish my beer and get out of your way.”